Now you can buy my book: "Dealing With Danger -- Be Prepared, Aware and Decisive"

Available for download on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iBooks and on your computer with iTunes as an eReader book price $8.99It's an instructional book to show people how to develop a straightforward, but comprehensive mindset or mental attitude to be aware of their surroundings, make simple but effective plans, and know when to put them into action. You can read a preview of the book online. A lot of people say that we need to develop a warrior attitude, but that just doesn't work for everyone. In my book I'll show you, regardless of age, gender, background, physical ability, and especially attitude how to be better prepared to survive the bad events in life by becoming a junkyard dog.Just click here.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

In Japan, drinking tea has been a carefully orchestrated ritual for centuries. The tea is served in a bowl, rather than a cup with a handle. If the tea is too hot to cradle the bowl in the palms of your hands, then it's too hot to drink. Think of it as a warning system to stop the tea drinker from scalding their mouth.

Here in the west, we go to the local Starbucks or similar coffee place and drink tea and coffee from mugs and cups with handles or get it to go in a paper cup with an insulating cardboard sleeve, or our own insulated container with a lid.

Most of us have scalded ourselves at some time or another with that first hasty sip from a cup containing near-boiling liquid. Why? Because we have circumvented the Japanese warning system. By insulting and protecting our hand with a mug handle or a protective sleeve, instead of our hand being the first thing to be scalded, it's our mouth.

We insulate ourselves from an early warning system in other ways too. Any time we are out in public and we are listening to music through stereo ear pieces, or we are texting while driving and not watching where we are going, we risk becoming a victim of an attack or an accident.

Don't insulate your senses from what is around you. Remember the lesson of the Japanese tea bowl.

John's Junkyard Dog website

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Why The Junkyard Dog?

Sooner or later, almost everyone is faced with some kind of bad situation. I’m talking about things like criminal attacks, natural disasters, car accidents…you name it and someone has experienced it. Some people have died or been severely injured, while others have survived. More than a quarter of a century ago, I began asking myself why some people survive events that others don’t; why some people resign themselves to becoming victims of some violent act of man or nature while others fight back and win.

I realized that few people, if any, have all the answers and are able to survive every situation; but I also realized that there are some common rules or procedures that can increase the average person’s chances of surviving most things, most of the time. That seems like a big step forward in surviving our own lives for as long as possible. Because that is what we want to do; survive the events of our own life. We all die eventually, but what I want to explore here is how we might put off that final outcome for as long as possible, and give ourselves the chance to live our lives to the fullest extent.

This blog is about finding ways to prepare and plan for, and hopefully avoid the kind of bad things that happen to people.

This blog is called The Junkyard Dog because it is a metaphor for the mindset that I believe anyone can learn in order to better protect themselves and their loved ones from the deadly threats that people have to face.

Imagine an actual junkyard. It is an area where things that are of value to the owner and the customers are stored. A high wire fence with a gate surrounds the junkyard to define the boundaries and to protect the things inside. A junkyard dog guards the junkyard when it is closed. The junkyard dog is alert and watches people who pass by the junkyard without coming inside, but he doesn’t take action against them because he doesn’t have to. They are outside his boundary. But if they attempt to climb the fence, he acts. He barks and growls and persuades them to go away. If they persist in climbing over the fence into his junkyard he will bite them. If they escape back over the fence, he won’t chase them down the street because he has already done his job, and they are no longer in his space. The junkyard dog understands that the fence is a boundary and as long as people are on their side of the fence when they aren’t supposed to be in his junkyard, he is happy.

A Junkyard Dog has three rules:

1. The junkyard dog is vigilant.

2. The junkyard dog will deal with any threat in the junkyard.

3. The junkyard dog will not pursue the threat outside of the junkyard.

We can take this illustration and apply it to our own security. A person who lives near a river that bursts its banks from time to time, flooding the surrounding area, can decide that if the river reaches a certain height, they will head to higher ground. They don’t have to wait until the river floods before they decide to take action. They know that when that boundary (the river reaches flood level) is crossed it’s time to leave.

This is what being a Junkyard Dog is all about: Being aware of our surroundings and knowing what to do when someone or something crosses a boundary that the junkyard dog has defined. A Junkyard Dog is Prepared, Aware, and Decisive.

About Me

John Higgs is a naturalized U.S. Citizen who came to the United States from England to enjoy the benefits of living in a free and open capitalist society with a constitution that guarantees certain individual, inalienable rights. His studies and practical experience in survival, self-defense, firearms, and other related subjects span three decades. Since 1990, he has been a part time firearms instructor for fun and profit, but mostly as a way to introduce people to shooting as a wonderful pastime and as a legitimate and viable means of self-defense. He was also certified as a Refuse To Be A Victim instructor in 1998. Many years in the Information Technology industry as a consultant programmer and analyst has prepared him to take a logical approach to the subjects about which he writes. Higgs is a published author: Soldier of Fortune magazine, American Cop, Concealed Carry, Tactical Weapons, and S.W.A.T. magazine. Author of “How to Protect Your Family from a Brutal Home Invasion” (Pub. Delta Media, 2008) “The Street Smart Guide to Bugging Out and Staying Alive” (Pub. Delta Media, 2009) "Dealing With Danger (Pub. 2010 www.lulu.com com www.amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com)